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SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 


—_—___=@ e-~<> 0 @—. .-- 


AN ADDRESS 


f DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF 


TRINITY COLLEGE, N. C..,. 


JUNE 7TH, 1893, 





BY 





Hon. A. M. WADDELL. 











‘ease 


SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 


AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF 


HRINITY SOLLEGE, N. @,, 


JUNE 7TH, 1893, 





BY 





Hon oa, WADDELL. 


P 300 ®O 


SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 


GENTLEMEN OF THE SOCIETIES: 


The offering which I bring you to day is nota literary one in 
the strict sense, and, therefore, may not be what, under the terms 
of the invitation extended to me, you have a right to expect. 

But, in view of the practical experiences which will soon con- 
front you, and of the problems which, as American citizens you 
will ere long have to aid in solving, directly or indirectly, it 
seemed to me to be a wise and proper thing to speak to you- 
upon a subject which is more and more attracting the attention 
of thoughtful people in our country. Both as a matter of phil- 
osophic speculation, and of practical statesmanship, it is becom- 
ing profoundly interesting and important. No discussion of it 
on an occasion like this can be other than superficial and frag- 
mentary, but it may serve a good purpose to merely direct your 
attention to it for a little while. 

I invite you to a brief consideration of the subject of Socialism 
in the United States in its relation to matters of public interest 
generally. 

The older and more reflecting persons in this audience who 
have any knowledge of the socialistic movemen’s in Europe 
during the last half century, and have observed the results o1 
them as now developing in this country, will not need to be told 
that gradually, socialistic ideas, under various names, have spread 
not only among the mixed and foreign-born populations of the 


4 


Northern and Western States, but all over this land. And such 
persons are alive to the fact thay these ideas—which in some 
parts of the country have taken a permanent hold and every- 
where are being diligently cultivated—unless directed, as they 
can be, towards the attainment ofa high civilization will ultimately 
accomplish the destruction of all that we hold most dear. 

If guided and controlled by the enlightened statesmanship and 
christian conscience of the country they will be the means of 
incalculable good, but if directed by the unchastened spirit of 
discontent and revolution they will inevitably bring disaster and 
ruin upon us. That this spirit of discontent exists and is 
growing, is true, and it is equally true as in all such cases: 
that the causes of it and the remedy for it are not clearly under- 
stood by the mass of those who feel it. 

It is not at all my purpose to discuss the philosophy of Social- 
ism as advoc ited by the different schools which have existed and 
now exist. They hive differed widely in their theories, but they 
a'l agree upon one general principle, which is at war with the 
fundamental ideas of government cherished by a large majority 
of the American people. That principle may be defined by the 
word paternalism. | 

It is true that a large school of socialists advocate the aboli 
tion of all existing institutions, but, even they would substitute 
for them a system which would subordinate in all things the 
individual to the community, and this is in direct conflict with 
the American ‘doctrine of the largest liberty of the individual 
consistent with the welfare of the State. 

Nor is it my purpose to go into the economic question between 
the wage earner and the capitalist, which is claimed by some to 
be the central principle of all Socialism—except so far as to say 
that, according to my view, the tendency of Socialism in this 
country is to produce one at least of the very worst evils that it 
charges to existing social and political systems, namely: the 
separation of society into two classes—the millionaires and the 
great mass of the poor. 


5 


I shall content myself with pointing out soine of the manifes- 


tations of Socialism in the recent political and legislative history 
of the country which indicate the growth of that spirit among us, 


and which furnish a field for the work of the true reformer. 

It has been the happy fortune of the Southern States, through 
out their history, to be exempt from internal disturbances arising 
from social and economic questions—a State of things which was, 
of course, attributable to the fact that until the last thirty years 
negro slavery existed and that until very recently the population 
was engaged almost exclusively in agriculture, and had, com. 
paratively, but little communication with the rest of the world. 
Without doubt the judgment of the world is that the exemption 
from the evils incident to society elsewhere which such a com- 
munity enjoyed was more than counterbalanced by the actual 
conditions of their existence; and with this judgment most of us 
will readily agree, although there are many good men who, rea- 
soning from a philosophic standpoint, do not admit it. 

With the radical changes that have taken place in our environ- 
ment, and under the influence of the spirit pervading the new 
era in which we live, we are now beginning to confront the prac-’ 
tical results of ideas and theories of which we previously had no 
knowledge, except, through books. 

As industrialism increases in the South to the point already 
reached at the North, these ideas and theories will grow until 
they become ‘burning questions” which must be settled. 

Now, in order to show that the time when these burning ques- 
tions will be presented is not so ‘ar distant as many optimists 
suppose, let me give you a condensed statement of the progress 
of the South in the past few years in two or three industries only, 
which is marvellous beyond comparison. The figures, which’ 
are taken from the last census, show this state of things, viz: 

That although the population of the North and West has been 
increased since 1880 by 5,000,000 immigrants while the South 
received few or none, and although the one section was at that 
time enormously rich, with vast manufacturing and other indus- 


6 


tries, while the other was poor and undeveloped, still the relative 
progress of the South has in every direction been equal and in 
some greatly superior to that of the North and West. 

There has been an actual gain in the assessed value of property 
in the Southern States between the years 1880 and 1891 of one 
billion, nine hundred million dollars, and an increase in the average 
assessed value per capita of nearly 100 per cent 

At the end of the year 1881 there were only 20,000 miles of 
poor railroads in the South; now there are 44,000 miles, many of 
the trunk lines giving a service unsurpassed in the world. This 
shows an increase of 120 per cent. in ten years, while the total 
increase in the whole United States for the same time was less 
than 90 per cent. There are as many miles of railroad in four 
Southern States to-day as there were in all the Southern States in 
1880, and the number of men employed on Southern railroads 
has increased from 40,000 to 120,000, while the business on them 
has increased in the same or greater proportion. 

In 1881 the South only made about 450,000 tons of pig-iron, 
but in 1891 she made nearly 2,000,000 tons which is nearly as 
much as was made in the whole United States in 1876. Ten 
years ago the North and West made more than nine times as 
much iron as the South; now they make less than four times as 
much. 

In 1881 the South only produced about 6,000,000 tons of coal; 
in 1891 she produced more than 23,000,000 tons. 

Up to a very few years ago the South made no coke; now she 
makes about all that is made in the country, excepting Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Cotton manufacturing, of course, exhibits the highest develop- 
ment. The Southern States now consume about as much raw 
cotton in their manufactures, as was consumed by the whole 
country as late as 1866, and they produce “more manufactured 
cotton goods than were produced in the great German Empire 
and France together in 1870, and more than the combined 
product in the same year of the great industrial countries of Hol- 
land, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.” 


4 

There were only 40 cotton-seed oil mills in the South in 1881 
with a capital of $3,500,000; now there are over 200 witha capi- 
tal of $30,000, 000. 

I might continue to give similar statistics in regard to a great 
many, if not all, the industries of the Southern States, tending to 
show a development that is almost, if not absolutely, without a 
parallel; but these will serve to justify my assertion that the time 
is not so far distant when we will have to meet and settle social 
and economic questions which have never before presented them- 
selves to our consideration as practical matters. 

Now, notwithstanding the screams of the American Eagle, and 
the cheerful optimism of some recent writers, and the general 
sense of security which prevails——and justly prevails—among our 
countrymen as to the future, an intelligent observer of the events 
of the past few years cannot fail to apprehend that communism 
or socialism —for the terms seem to be regarded as synonymous 
by those who advocate the principles involved—is here, and here 
to stay for good or evil. ; 

I do not refer to the Anarchists of the North-west—the disci- 
ples of Banukin— or to any immoral school of socialists, or even 
to the few really learned Utopian philosophers who, with a spirit 
of true philanthropy, would offer their economic theories as a 
remedy for the evils which afflict society. Each and all of these 
are, and I believe will be, practically harmless. Therefore I am 
as little apprehensive of the nightmare depicted in that remarka- 
ble book Caesar’s Column, as I am of realizing the dream of Mr. 
Bellamy in Looking Backward. 

The socialism of which I speak is the degenerate offspring of 
respectable parentage, which masquerades under various aliases, 
and does’nt know its own name. 

Its chief field of operation in this country has been in the trans- 
Mississippi territory, and notably in Kansas and some adjoining 
States. 

Recently when there was actual fighting between two political 
parties for possession of the capitol building in Kansas, thinking 


S 


8 


people all over the country began to realize what the propagation 
of socialistic ideas here was tending to, and they are now fully 
alive to it. They understand that there is something more than 
“hard times,” and a tight money market behind the movement 
While many would never concede it as long as they could find 
any other source to which they might credit it, the truth is that 
the origin of this socialistic movement is to be found in the war, 
and the legislation and political education of the people which 
followed it, all of which has tended towards an enlargement of 
the sphere of Federal jurisdiction, the centralization of power at 
Washington and the corresponding diminution of State and indi- 
vidual rights. In a word paternalism. I say this truth’ will not 
be admitted by many because it looks uncomfortably like a vin- 
dication of the principles advocated by Southern statesmen from 
the foundation of the Government. 
But it is a truth notwithstanding, and, pleasant or unpleasant, 
it ought to be recognized and acted upon, and must be if the 
integrity of our institutions is to be preserved In the West the 
leaders of the Socialists, including many Church of England 
people who have formed a branch of what is called “The Chris- 
tian Social Union of England,” according to printed statements 
which I have seen, do not hesitate to declare their belief in a 
paternal government. Among other declarations made by some 
of them, as published, is that of a clergyman who said: ‘‘Pater- 
nalism is the only relief for the present terrible social and moral 
conditions. This government will become paternalism unless it 
goes to the devil first.” This is the thought of the educated 
among them in the cities, and of course in the rural districts and 
among the less educated the sentiment, without the reasoning on 
which it is based, is even more pronounced. Now these doc- 
trines cannot be traced back to the old differences between Fed- 
eralists and Republicans in the early days of the republic ; they 
are of comparatively recent origin. They are,as I have just said 
the fruit of the war and the legislation, which, however necessary 
for the successful waging of the war while pending, ought to have 
ceased with its termination, if the government was not to be 


y 

transformed into a system never contemplated by its founders. 
It is true that a remote basis might be found for some of this 
paternalism in a fact which was first called to public attention by 
the late Senator Lamar in speaking of another matter, viz: That 
whereas in 1789 the General Government was the creature of the 
States, in 1861 a large majority of the States were the creatures 
of the General Government, having been carved out of the public 
_domain, and that thus the ideas relative to them respectively had 
undergone a radical change. 

But the real and direct orf&in of paternalism is that which I 
have given. During the war all eyes were turned to the General 
Government, all hopes centred in it, all power was entrusted to 
it. It was the one great overshadowing and protecting force—— 
a thing which it had never been before. 

With great armies in the field, great navies on the water, a 
host of civil officers everywhere, and gathering from the people 
by direct and indirect taxation revenues which seem fabulous, it 
came to be regarded as at once the source of all authority, the 
guardian ofall interests, and the dispenser of all bounty. 

Its triumphant success in the great conflict served to emphasize 
these sentiments, and magnify its power, and the result was that 
when the war ended and the armies were disbanded thousands o1 
“patriots out of a job” were added to the civil list, the war taxes 
were kept up, and an era of shameless extravagance in every 
direction began—the government being general almoner. Inge- 
nuity was exhausted in contriving schemes for the expenditure 
of the enormous public revenues, and the habit of looking to the 
government for everything was becoming fixed in the public 
mind. The liberal pension laws, intended for those who had 
become disabled by wounds or disease contracted in the military _ 
service, began to be amended so as to embrace cases never origi- 
nally contemplated, and have continued to be enlarged in their 
scope until the amount now expended for pensions alone is nearly 
three times as great as the entire expenses of the government in 
the year before the war. A vast empire had been given away to 
railroad corporations in the West, and to one of them, in addi. 


10 


tion to its appalling land grant, fifty millions of dollars had beeti 
loaned by the government. 

Thus the people, of the West particularly, were diligently 
educated in the principles of paternalism, and it became a custom 
whenevera locality was visited by calamity, to rush to the govern- 
ment as an earthly providence for comfort and relief. The idea 
that the government was one of limited powers, ard that it could 
not lawfully transcend these limits as defined in the constitution, 
was scouted as an echo of secession and rebellion; and if the 
suggestioa was made that the plethoric coffers of the Treasury 
could not stand further drain the answer was that the govern- 
ment made all the money it needed during the war, and ought to 
make enough to satisfy the wants of the people whenever neces- 
sary. Thus the spectre of “fiat”? money which, in the agony of 
the war had been evoked and had served asa minister of relief, 
re-appeared to serve the purposes of socialism. 

States caught the infection and sumptuary laws began to be 
enacted, which have at last culminated in the noble effort of the 
Minnesota legislature to abolish crinoline and regulate the dress 
of Chinamen. Socialistic legislation of all kinds is constantly 
being proposed in many States of the Union, and, in some of the 
cities and large industrial centres, trades-unions exercise a des- 
potic control over all branches of business. 

Socialistic ideas have cropped out in the decisions of the 
Courts, and even that great tribunal which is the crowning glory 
of the constitution, and the last refuge of endangered rights—the 
Supreme Court of the United States—has appeared in several 
recent decisions to countenance them by its very liberal con- 
struction of the police powers of the States, as distinguished from 
their taxing p wer. 

Of course it was to be expected that the mere demagogue, who’ 
panders to what he believes to be the dominant sentiment of those 
among whom he plies his vocation, would promptly seize upon 
these socialistic and communistic tendencies where they prevail 
and utilize them for his own selfish ends ; or that the smart poli- 
tician with a reverent care for his own political health would 


16 


coquette with them or maintain a prudent silence—but the man 
whose fortune it is to occupy a position involving a duty to the 
public, and who has, as every one holding such a position ought 
to have, the courage of his convictions, must realize that there is 
now resting upon him no higher obligation than that of doing all 
in his power to arrest these tendencies, and, if possible, to direct 
them to beneficent ends, 

In the history of socialism the last element to be reached has 
always been the agriculturist class, and for reasons which need 
no elaborate explanation. 

The owners and tillers of the soil in every land have been the 
conservators of good government, but in this country we have 
lived to see almost the entire farming population of the Western 
States, and a large proportion of them in the South, under the 
misleadership of wild theorists and ill-informed but fluent orators, 
driven into the advocacy of socialism and paternalism of a kind 
so extravagant that only the earnestness with which it is sup- 
ported, and the danger to the public welfare which it involves 
could save it from ridicule. It is the most remarkable move- 
ment of our time, and is the result of what was originally a legi- , 
timate and intelligent co-operative movement for the welfare of 
the agricultural interests of the country, after the failure of sev- 
eral succeSsive crops, and the pressure of exactions by railroad 
corporations and money lenders. Beginning with a protest 
against these exactions and a discussion of measures of relief it 
degenerated, under the influences already referred to, into a 
political organization with a “platform” of principles which are 
at war with all recognized social and economic laws, and which, 
if they could be enforced, would generate chaos. Although this 
is still the situation in some of the Western States, it can be said 
to the honor and credit of thousands of the Farmers of the 
South, that while they abate no jot or tittle of their complaint 
against, and denunciation of, the unjust legislation from which 
they have suffered, they will not permit themselves to be used 
for the purposes aimed at in this new crusade, for to do so would 
be to sacrifice upon the altar of fanaticism their patriotism and 


12 


common sense. They have never embraced the paternalism in- 
volved ina high protective tariff, because many understand that 
it operates to their hurt and all are under the influence of the 
traditional hostility to it which has always prevailed in the 
South. It is to be earnestly hoped that many thousands more of 
them will abandon the other paternal arid socialist heresies, to 
which they have committed themselves in the hope of redress- 
ing grievances, which unquestionably exist, but which cannot be 
redressed by such means. 

But whether they shall hereafter abandon these heresies or 
not, the fact is that socialism in various forms is widespread in 
the United States, and it behooves the young men who like 
yourselves, are about to assume the rights and duties of citizen- 
ship to equip themselves with knowledge of the complex govern- 
ment under which they live, in order that those rights may be 
more clearly understood and those duties may be faithfully per- 
formed. It behooves you to fully know that the safeguards of 
individual liberty which you inherited from your English ances- 
tors, and which your fore-fathers were careful to preserve in writ- 
ten constitutions, will inevitably be imperilled if paternalism is 
encouraged, and that the sort of socialism prevalent in this coun- 
try, if carried to its logical consequences, means, eventually, 
anarchy. 

Some of the doctrines advocated by these Socialists are so 
utterly subversive of the first principles of English liberty not to 
say of American law, that it would seem impossible to escape the 
conclusion that they originated and are advocated either from 
pure ignorance or else a blind recklessness of consequences, or 
from the two combined ; but there are others that have an appar- 
ent basis of justice in the unwise laws that have sometimes been 
enacted, although if adopted as a remedy for them incalculable 
wrong would be done. | 

I do not by any means intend to intimate that all the advocates 
of socialism in this county are either ignorant or vicious. 

I might almost say I wish they were, for then their capacity 
for harm would be limited. There is a socialism of an opposite 


13 


type to that which I have been discussing—the socialism of greed 
and cunning, which has not the virtue justly attaching to those, 
who, believing themselves oppressed, would seek redress by 
such crude and wild schemes as have been projected by them: 
Associated capital is quite as capable of perpetrating injustice, and 
more so, than associated labor is of resisting it, and the limits 
within which the one may lawfully operate ought to be no more 
- difficult to define than those of the other. What the American 
people think on that subject has received one illustration, at 
least, in the Anti-Trust law. 

There is, as I have already said, an optimistic view of this mat- 
ter of socialism in this country. Many persons regard it as only 
one of the passing phenomena of our national life, which will have 
its day, and soon, in the rapid rush of events, pass away and be 
forgotten. I wish I could take that view of it, but I cannot; and 
it is because I regard it as one of the serious problems which have 
been developed in the civilization of our country and which will 
remain ta try the statesmanship of your generation at least, that 
I thought it a fit subject for discussion on this occasion. I do 
not think that the extent to which socialistic ideas have been dis- 
seminated, and the strong hold they have taken upon the minds 
of millions of our people are fully appreciated by most of us. 
We are slow to believe the prophets of evil, and are apt to delude 
ourselves with false hopes as to the future of the Republic. 
Scarcely anybody believed that there was really going to be war 
between the States until the guns opened on Fort Sumter—and 
some not even then—although they had been gradually approach- 
ing it for many years. Peaceful revolutions have not been frequen, 
in human history, and the millenium is not here yet. Do not 
assume from this remark that I am an alarmist or that I appre- 
hend any violent revolution in the country in the early future, for 
such is not the case. I am only pointing out what seems to be a 
source of danger which ought to be and must be guarded against 
and, if possible, turned to good uses. 

If the ideal of the loftier school of Socialists, as known in 
England and Germany, could be attained the result would be 


14 


something very near akin to the Christian Commonwealth, a pure 
Democracy; but that is a dream, which, if ever realized among 
men, is ages ahead of us. Our business is with the present, and 
the socialism of the present in our country is inimical to religion, 
and tends to the subversion of free institutions. 

How is it to be met? By the cultivation of a spirit of justice, 
and moderation, and forbearance, and obedience to law—by 
keeping government within the limits which our wise forefathers 
prescribed for it, and by preserving, with unfaltering devotion, 
that individualism which is the corner-stone of Anglo Saxon 
liberty. To accomplish this, cowardice must be banished from 
pulpit, and press, and legislatures and courts. Men must have 
the courage of their convictions and allow no unworthy motive 
of expediency to come between them and their duty. That is 
the curse of our public life to-day and the cause of many of the 
ills of the body politic. In politics, as in trade, there are those 
who will “crook the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift may 
follow fawning,” and, knowing the right, will still the wrong pur- 
sue in dealing with the interests of the people. May their tribe 
decrease, and disappear; but it will not until there is universal 
assent to and a practical enforcement of the maxim that “public 
office is a public trust to be administered for the benefit of the 
people.” 

Among the early Greeks the word ‘‘idiotes’”—an idiot— meant 
only a private person, as contradistinguished from one holding 
a public position and participating in the management of public 
affairs. Public office was regarded by them not only as essen- 
tial to a man’s dignity and importance in the community, but 
necessary as the means of acquiring knowledge. 

Hence being out of public position and a mere private citizen, 
or “idiotes,” became synonymous with being an ignorant and 
uneducated person; and this secondary meaning of the word 
finally degenerated, when transfered into English, into the mean- 
ing now attached to it—namely, a person without any intelligence 
at all and incapable of learning anything. Judging by the con 
duct and utterances of some modern. public functionaries we are 


15 


justified in believing that they have adopted the early Greek 
view of public office, and would apply to all mere private citizens 
the original word—according to its present meaning. 

I think it is a matter worth considering whether this view will 
not be strengthened by the establishment of an official class in 
this country under the operation of the Civil Service Law; but 
I do not intend to discuss it. 

Now, young gentlemen, I have presented to you (in a very super- 
ficial and fragmentary way as I said at the beginning of my 
remarks) one of the interesting subjects with which you will 
have to deal when you become fuil fledged citizens and voters, 
and in closing the discussion of it 1] would commend to you the 
importance of studying the constitutional history of your coun- 
try, and the great modern writers upon economic science, whence 
you may gather the knowledge that will be needful to you when 
confronted by it, and other problems that await you. 


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